Just shy of one year ago, when The Eye-Dancers site was a fledgling neophyte in the WordPress community, I received my first blog award. Sheri from The Other Side of Ugly awarded The Eye-Dancers with a Blog of the Year 2012 award. It was a wonderful moment. Just starting out, unsure of even the simplest steps to take in the blogosphere, it was a tremendous boost of confidence receiving Sheri’s nomination. I truly appreciated it then, and truly appreciate it now.

So it seems fitting somehow that Sheri has again nominated The Eye-Dancers for a Blog of the Year Award–this time for 2013! Thank you very much, Sheri! Your continued support over the past year has meant a lot. For those of you not familiar with Sheri’s blog, The Other Side of Ugly, I hope you’ll take a look. It is a gem of a site, and should not be missed.

Before going on, I would like to take this opportunity to pause for a moment, and thank the wonderful bloggers who have nominated The Eye-Dancers for several other awards over the past few months . . .

Thanks so much to Reshu Malhotra who nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award. Reshu has a great blog where she writes about health and beauty, sharing with her readers very knowledgeable tips and helpful advice. Hers is a beautiful blog, in every sense of the word!

Jennifer Marsh nominated The Eye-Dancers for One Lovely Blog Award. Jennifer is a very talented author, and I am a big fan of her site! Please take some time to browse through it. I’m confident you will become a big fan, too.

Leslie from lesliesholly nominated me for The Sunshine Award. Leslie has a very eclectic blog, where she talks about a variety of topics, and always keeps her readers engaged. Her blog is a great place to visit!

Ampbreia’s Space nominated The Eye-Dancers for The Leibster Award. Ampbeia’s blog is diverse, well written, thought-provoking, and just plain good. I hope you will stop in for an extended visit!

And Sherri from A View From My Summerhouse nominated The Eye-Dancers for a Dragon’s Loyalty Award. Sherri’s site is a treasure. I promise you–if you stop by, you’ll want to stay for a while!

I was lucky enough to have already been nominated for each of these awards previously, but I wanted to thank all of the great bloggers above for their nominations! I really appreciate it.

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The instructions for the Blog of the Year 2013 Award are simple:

1-Select the blog(s) you think deserve the Blog Of The Year 2013 Award.

2-Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen- there are no minimum or maximum number of blogs required- and ‘present’ the blog(s) with their award.

3-Let the blog(s) that you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the instructions with them- (please don’t alter the instructions or the badges!)

6-And as a winner of the award- please add a link back to the blog that presented you with this award-and then proudly display the award on your blog- and start collecting stars!

Who doesn’t love collecting stars? I can see a bright smile on your face and stop being shy. Come on! It’s all yours and grab the awards

Unlike other awards which you can only add to your blog once-this award is different!

When you begin you will receive the ’1 star’ award- and every time you are given the award by another blog- you can add another star!

There are a total of 6 stars to collect.

Which means that you can check out your favorite blogs- and even if they have already been given the award by someone else- you can still bestow it on them again and help them to reach the maximum of 6 stars! You can either ‘swop’ your badge for the next one each time you are given the award- or even proudly display all six badges if you are lucky enough to be presented with the award 6 times!

You can find all the badges and banners and information you need via this link: ‘Blog of The Year 2013′ Award Badges.

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In the celebrated Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music, a defining moment is when Maria sings “My Favorite Things” to the von Trapp children. It is one of the first moments of true bonding Maria shares with the children, and is one of my favorite scenes of the production.

So, without further delay, I would like to nominate some of my favorite blogs for the Blog of the Year 2013 award!

Some of Maria’s favorite things in The Sound of Music include “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens . . .” The blogs listed above are some of mine. And I’m sure they will be some of yours, too.

In this season of thankfulness, I also want to extend a hearty thank-you to all the great followers of The Eye-Dancers website. You are the reason this is so much fun for me.

Thank you so much! I’m so honored. I’ll be sure to work on this as soon as possible. It’s been such a privilege to have found this site and to have your encouragement. You’re a wonderful writer and I’m looking forward to more of what you have to say. 🙂

Many, many congratulations on all your well deserved awards Mike and thank you so much for thinking of me for the Blogger of the Year Award, wow, I am truly honoured and actually quite speechless (and that doesn’t happen very often, I can assure you!) This is a beautiful gift, you’ve really made my day 🙂

Mike apologies it has taken me a while to get around to acknowledging your post . First I want to say Congratulations on receiving this award Well done and deserved.. And second, to thank you so much for the nomination of Dreamwalker’s sanctuary, you are now the second to nominate my blog, so I guess that means two stars :-)… It is taking me forever to catch up with people and awards as I have been absent for a few days on WP..But I hope within the next couple of days do justice to this and other awards…
Many thanks Mike, and I hope all is well with you and yours..
Blessings And much gratitude my friend for thinking of me 😀
Sue 🙂

Thank you so much for listing your favorite blogs! I will use them to do more reading and exploring on WP in 2014. I am so happy to know of your blog. May all good things arrive in your life during this interesting time of year!

Mike Wishing you a wonderful Christmas with Family and Friends, and thank you for your support over this year… May you have continued success with all of your writing and publications throughout 2014…
Love and Blessings
Sue